Kina og USAs udenlandsgæld

“Owe your banker £1,000 and you are at his mercy; owe him £1 million and the position is reversed.” – John Maynard Keynes

Glimrende og oplysende artikel på Forbes.com om USAs store udenlandsgæld, der hovedsageligt skyldes til Kina. Gældens astronomiske størrelse gør paradoksalt nok, at den i høj grad er beskyttet fra manipulation og spekulation – så længe gælden optages i amerikanske dollars. Men dermed betyder det ikke, at Kinas store indkøb af amerikanske gældsposter er gode for nogle af de to lande. Som artiklens forfatter, forfatteren og økonomen Bruce Bartlett, pointerer:

While I don’t worry too much about the Chinese using their Treasury holdings to bludgeon us into taking actions that are against our national interest, neither do I think the current trend is entirely healthy for both countries. The best solution would be for the Chinese to allow their currency to appreciate, which would go a long way toward redressing our trade imbalance, while we reduced our budget deficit enough to finance it domestically. Alternatively, we will have to be willing to accept broader Chinese ownership of private American assets–real estate, businesses and so on–which will certainly raise political tensions. It’s something both countries should seek to avoid.

Artiklen kommer rundt om væsentlige emner som Kinas statskontrollerede valutakurser, USA’s manipulerede handelsbalance med Kina, statsgældens indvirken på den sikkerhedspolitiske situation og The Founding Fathers uvilje mod statsunderskud. Den er bestemt værd at læse i sin helhed.

Timothy Geithner og Obama’s tabte år

To strålende artikler i The New Yorker om den amerikanske (og dermed globale) økonomiske situation:

Først John Cassidy’s portræt af den amerikanske finansminister Timothy Geithners økonomiske politik, the bail out, de politiske implikationer og den generelle utilfredshed i befolkningen med en økonomisk politik, der ellers har virket.

Money quote:

And yet—whisper it softly—there is good news about the financial system and the roundly loathed bank bailout, the seven-hundred-billion-dollar relief package that Congress approved in October, 2008. During the past ten months, U.S. banks have raised more than a hundred and forty billion dollars from investors and increased the reserves they hold to cover unforeseen losses. While many small banks are still in peril, their larger brethren, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs, are more strongly capitalized than many of their international competitors, and they have repaid virtually all the money they received from taxpayers. Looking ahead, the Treasury Department estimates the ultimate cost of the financial-rescue package at just a hundred and seventeen billion dollars—and much of that related to propping up General Motors and Chrysler. Barring something unexpected, the bailout will end up costing taxpayers less than the savings-and-loan implosion of the early nineteen-nineties. The government could conceivably end up making money.

Og dernæst George Packer’s artikel om Obama’s tabte år om hvorfor de fleste amerikanere ikke mener at regeringens store økonomiske hjælpepakke  har hjulpet dem personligt. Artiklen kan ikke læses online, men Packer’s blogpost beskæftiger sig med nogle af artiklens hovedpointer, ikke mindst kritikken af The Recovery Act:

The stalled effort to pass health-care reform has dominated analysis of the Administration’s difficulty in securing its agenda. But the key to Obama’s first year is the Recovery Act. It set the pattern for everything that followed: intelligent but cautious policymaking; legislative compromises that watered down the bill’s impact without enlisting more than a tiny number of Republicans; an immediate campaign by opposition politicians and media to declare the program a failure; a weak, uncoördinated Administration effort to explain and champion the stimulus package; gradual public disillusionment. A year later, Obama has few options left in the battle with stubborn joblessness.

Værd at læse det hele.